Telephone (phone) menus can be used in a company's telephone system to route callers to a desired department, person, or extension within the company. As an example, a customer calling into a company telephone system may wish to reach a specific department such as sales, technical support, customer service, etc. After pick up, a conventional phone menu can be played to the customer and can include an audio message containing instructions such as “Press or say ‘1’ for sales; press or say ‘2’ for technical support; press or say ‘3’ for customer service”, etc. When the customer presses a number on a phone dialpad or speaks the number corresponding to the desired destination, the customer's call is transferred to the selected extension. Phone menus are sometimes referred to as interactive voice response (IVR), auto-attendants, or phone trees.
Listening to a phone menu can be an annoyance for many customers. Some companies now offer visual phone menus that can be viewed by their customers in an internet browser. The visual phone menu allows the customer to avoid listening to the dreaded phone menu. Typically, the visual phone menu provides a short description of available departments in the company and an associated hyperlink. The customer views the available departments in the browser and selects a desired department that the customer wishes to call. The customer may also enter a contact number for callback. The customer is called back at the provided contact number and thereby connected to the selected department.
Customers calling into a conventional company phone system will only hear a conventional phone menu—unless otherwise informed, such callers would not be aware that a visual phone menu was available. Furthermore, a customer who wishes to access a company's visual phone menu must initiate a visit themselves using an internet browser.